UN rights body urges Sudan to prosecute Darfur suspects
December 14, 2007 (GENEVA) — The U.N.’s Human Rights Council Friday sought to pressure Sudan to prosecute those responsible for atrocities in Darfur and renewed the mandate for its special rapporteur in the African nation.
Another resolution proposed by the European Union and African nations urged Sudan to investigate “all allegations of human rights and international humanitarian law violations” in its western Darfur region, “promptly bringing to justice the perpetrators of these violations”.
However, the mandate for a group of experts created a year ago to monitor human rights in Darfur has not been extended.
“The tasks of the group of experts are being transferred to the special rapporteur,” council president Doru Romulus Costea, of Romania, told reporters.
In a report published a week ago, the experts’ group said that the situation in Darfur had not improved.
Sudanese armed forces continue to kill civilians in Darfur and all sides in the conflict still abuse human rights with impunity, the report said.
“According to United Nations sources, from June 20 to mid-November 2007, at least 15 land and air attacks were made on civilian centres in all three Darfur states by the forces of the government, affiliated militia and the Minni Minawi faction of the (rebel) Sudanese Liberation Army,” it said.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, said earlier this week that “grave violations of international human rights and humanitarian law continue to be committed in Sudan, for the most part with total impunity”.
The conflict in Darfur has left at least 200,000 people dead and displaced more than two million, according to UN figures.
It erupted in February 2003 when ethnic minority rebels rose up against Khartoum to demand an end to the political and economic marginalisation of their huge region the size of France.
Khartoum’s response was to back the Arab Janjaweed militia and give it free rein to crack down on the rebels and their backers.
(AFP)